Tenth Day on the Trail
Hi to All, Here I am again. The next two legs of the trip are travel days followed by touring days. Yesterday we left Brandon, SD for Hill City, SD via the Badlands. We drove through miles and miles of Great Plains. Slightly rolling terrain with corn, soy beans and occasionally live stock in the form of cattle and horses. I only remember seeing one small flock of sheep the whole day. The weather was hot and dry with a nasty wind out of the southwest. The rest areas all had some type of walled shelters and roofs over the picnic tables. Here is a photo taken from the car as we traveled.
After driving most of the day we finally arrived at the bypass route off of I-90 for the Badlands. This is an area of desolation in an otherwise fertile area. The land is useless for anything but sight seeing. The views and vistas are very impressive and photography can only begin to show the colors and textures of the landscape. I remember driving through the Badlands as a young teenager with my parents in a non-airconditioned car and it was 102 deg. in the shade. Yesterday we arrived at the ranger station in 115 deg. heat. The picture below is a sample of the wild terrain to be found in the Badlands.
After leaving the Badlands we stopped at the famous (or is it infamous) Wall Drug in Wall, SD. There are signs for the Wall Drug store all across South Dakota. The "store" only takes up a city block and we bought some things and enjoyed a dish of ice cream there before heading out for the last leg of the day. After arriving in Hill City, SD we unpacked the car and inquired about dinner. There are no Mickey D's, Dennys, or Burger Kings in these hills. We ended up eating dinnner at the Bumping Buffalo. I had a Buffalo Burger which tasted very much like a standard hamburger and Char had chicken fingers after initially ordering Fish and Chips, apparently they ran out.
This morning we had a liesurely start (Hey, don't forget we are on vacation.) We first went to Mount Rushmore. What a spectacular sight. Again photos don't really do it justice. The photo below is the best example that I took with the digital camera. You will have to catch up with me later to see others that I took with the "good" SLR camera using the telephoto lens. Char and I caught a "Presidential tour" given by about the cutest park ranger I have ever seen. She did an excellent job of explaining the significance of each of the four presidents that are depicted on Mt. Rushmore. We spent about 2 hours there and I had another Buffalo Burger for lunch while Char had a hot dog.
Our next stop was the Crazy Horse mountain monument. This is still a work in progress but it is even larger than Mount Rushmore. In fact during the orientation film we saw they juxtaposed the Mount Rushmore figures into just the head of Crazy Horse. The photo shows one of the models at the visitor center in the foreground showing what the finished monument will look like with the real thing, so far, in the background.
We are hoping to get an early start tomorrow on our way to Cody, WY. Our next stop is Yellowstone National Park.
After driving most of the day we finally arrived at the bypass route off of I-90 for the Badlands. This is an area of desolation in an otherwise fertile area. The land is useless for anything but sight seeing. The views and vistas are very impressive and photography can only begin to show the colors and textures of the landscape. I remember driving through the Badlands as a young teenager with my parents in a non-airconditioned car and it was 102 deg. in the shade. Yesterday we arrived at the ranger station in 115 deg. heat. The picture below is a sample of the wild terrain to be found in the Badlands.
After leaving the Badlands we stopped at the famous (or is it infamous) Wall Drug in Wall, SD. There are signs for the Wall Drug store all across South Dakota. The "store" only takes up a city block and we bought some things and enjoyed a dish of ice cream there before heading out for the last leg of the day. After arriving in Hill City, SD we unpacked the car and inquired about dinner. There are no Mickey D's, Dennys, or Burger Kings in these hills. We ended up eating dinnner at the Bumping Buffalo. I had a Buffalo Burger which tasted very much like a standard hamburger and Char had chicken fingers after initially ordering Fish and Chips, apparently they ran out.
This morning we had a liesurely start (Hey, don't forget we are on vacation.) We first went to Mount Rushmore. What a spectacular sight. Again photos don't really do it justice. The photo below is the best example that I took with the digital camera. You will have to catch up with me later to see others that I took with the "good" SLR camera using the telephoto lens. Char and I caught a "Presidential tour" given by about the cutest park ranger I have ever seen. She did an excellent job of explaining the significance of each of the four presidents that are depicted on Mt. Rushmore. We spent about 2 hours there and I had another Buffalo Burger for lunch while Char had a hot dog.
Our next stop was the Crazy Horse mountain monument. This is still a work in progress but it is even larger than Mount Rushmore. In fact during the orientation film we saw they juxtaposed the Mount Rushmore figures into just the head of Crazy Horse. The photo shows one of the models at the visitor center in the foreground showing what the finished monument will look like with the real thing, so far, in the background.
We are hoping to get an early start tomorrow on our way to Cody, WY. Our next stop is Yellowstone National Park.
posted by Frank McDowell | 11:47 PM
1 Comments:
I love your website. It has a lot of great pictures and is very informative.
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